Category Archives: Embedded Components

Everything about Processor Expert Embedded Components

Tutorial: Understanding and Using FreeRTOS Software Timers

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Hardware Timers are essential to most embedded applications: I use them mostly for triggering actions at a given frequency, such as acquiring data from a  sensor. With using an RTOS I can do a similar thing using a task: the task will run with a given frequency and I can periodic work in it. However, using a task might be too much overhead doing this. The good news is that there is a much more efficient way to do this in FreeRTOS with Software Timers. And this is what this tutorial is about: how to use Software Timers with FreeRTOS.

FreeRTOS Software Timers

FreeRTOS Software Timers

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Understanding FreeRTOS Task Stack Usage and Kernel Awareness Information

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When using the FreeRTOS Task List in the Eclipse based MCUXpresso IDE, it shows the list of tasks with their stack size used. But with the default FreeRTOS settings it is not able to determine the correct stack size and shows a warning icon:

Warning for Stack Usage

Warning for Stack Usage

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Sneak Preview: DIY SMT Pick & Place Machine with OpenPnP

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I apologize: I have not been blogging much in the past weeks :-(. One reason is that I’m working on a DIY SMT/SMD Pick&Place machine which keeps me busy most of my spare time :-). I admit that this project is not finished yet, but now is the time I can give a sneak preview: a SMD/SMT pick and place machine:

Pick&Place Machine

Pick&Place Machine

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McuOnEclipse Components: 1-Apr-2018 Release

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It’s April Fool’s Day, but be assured this is not a joke ;-): I’m pleased to announce that a new release of the McuOnEclipse components is available in SourceForge. This release includes several smaller bug fixes and components have been upgraded for FreeRTOS V10.0.1.

SourceForge

SourceForge

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Performance and Runtime Analysis with FreeRTOS

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One of the great things with the FreeRTOS operating system is that it comes with free performance analysis: It shows me how much time is spent in each task. Best of all: it shows it in a graphical way inside Eclipse too:

FreeRTOS Runtime Information in Eclipse

FreeRTOS Runtime Information in Eclipse

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Faster FreeRTOS Percepio Tracealyzer Streaming with Segger RTT

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To solve the real hard problem of Embedded Systems development, I usually need all the data I can get from the target. The Percepio Tracealizer is such a tool which can stream application and FreeRTOS trace from the target over a Segger J-Link connection using the Segger RTT protocol. I’m using that combination a lot.

Streaming trace data that way does not need a dedicated hardware like ETM Trace. Using RTT is usually not much intrusive and affects the performance of the target in the 1-2% range (of course depending on the amount of data).

But what worried me for several weeks is that after moving to FreeRTOS V10.0.0 and the same time updating the Segger libraries, the target performance was heavily affected:

RTT Streamnig affects target performance

RTT streaming affects target performance?

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McuOnEclipse Components: 26-Dec-2017 Release

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I’m pleased to announce that a new release of the McuOnEclipse components is available in SourceForge., which is supposed to be the last release for 2017 :-). This release features several smaller bug fixes, the new FreeRTOS V10.0.0 and extended device support.

SourceForge

SourceForge

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New Concept for 2018 Mini Sumo Roboter

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Doing Mini Sumo robot competition is really fun, and there is yet another one coming to end the current university semester. For several years we have used our own sumo robot, and this is the one used in the course this year too. But for future and extended events we are exploring a new robot. I proudly present the concept of the next generation sumo robot for the year 2018:

Sumo Robot with Bluetooth module

Sumo Robot with Bluetooth module

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New FreeRTOS V10.0.0: Amazon, Segger SystemView and Percepio Tracealyzer

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“Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers”: The announcement of FreeRTOS V10.0.0 was one of the biggest news last week for me. Not only is there now a Version 10, the bigger news is that FreeRTOS is now part of Amazon. Wow! Now this explains why Richard Barry (the founder behind FreeRTOS) was kind of hiding away for about a year: he joined Amazon as a principal engineer about a year ago. I think we all have to wait and see what it means for FreeRTOS.

Amazon FreeRTOS

Amazon FreeRTOS (Source: Amazon Web Site)

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First tinyK22 Board with NXP K22FN512 ARM Cortex-M4F

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The NXP Freedom boards are very popular. Many of them are inexpensive (less than $20), include a debug interface and can be easily extended with extra shields or boards. Especially the FRDM-KL25Z is very popular: I’m getting told because of Processor Expert and tutorials available on web sites like this one ;-).

Unfortunately there are no small or breadboard friendly Kinetis boards available. There is the NXP LPC800-DIP but with no onboard debugger and without Processor Expert support. We have the tinyK20, but projects tend to use more CPU power, FLASH and RAM space than what the tinyK20 board (50 MHz, 128 KByte FLASH, 16 KByte RAM) can provide. So we ended up designing the big brother of the first tinyK20: the tinyK22 with 120 MHz, 512 KByte of FLASH and 128 KByte of RAM.

tinyK22 Overview

tinyK22 Overview

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